Comments on: Best of the Decade Derby: A.I. liveblog with Keith Uhlich and Michael Joshua Rowin

By: alsolikelife

alsolikelife — Tue, 25 Aug 2009 18:10:12 +0000

Yeah, almost as fun as thinking Kubrick did EYES WIDE SHUT to break up a superficial marriage (or save Nicole from a lifetime of Scientology)

By: AJ

AJ — Tue, 25 Aug 2009 15:08:53 +0000

It's fun to imagine that perhaps Kubrick planned this project to push Spielberg's directorial trademark of infantile sentimentality into new territory from beyond his grave.

By: alsolikelife

alsolikelife — Mon, 24 Aug 2009 18:58:01 +0000

“Then at the end, we are treated to the “heartwarming” spectacle of robots watching a robot display fake emotions for a hologram of a dead woman.”

Sounds like modern Hollywood in a nutshell, don't it?

By: christianne

christianne — Mon, 24 Aug 2009 15:42:54 +0000

Oh, by the way, I should mention that I think A.I. is probably a masterpiece. It's a film that I DO love, but I think it's a seriously flawed masterpiece for all that. Of course, seriously flawed masterpieces are really interesting; more interesting than many more "perfect" movies.

Also for what it's worth, it's not my favorite Spielberg film of the aughts. That would be Catch Me If You Can. I have a weakness for slick entertainments, and this is one of the best Spielberg has ever made.

Anyway...here's to crime!

By: SeeingI

SeeingI — Mon, 24 Aug 2009 11:49:10 +0000

On my first viewing I fervently wished the film had ended with David underwater gazing at the Blue Fairy, but a 2nd viewing convinced me that audiences are SUPPOSED to feel alienated by the end of the movie. For two hours we've been jerked around by Spielberg making us care about David, even while never letting us forget that his “emotions” are all programmed. Then at the end, we are treated to the “heartwarming” spectacle of robots watching a robot display fake emotions for a hologram of a dead woman. It's a cinematic mind-screw. It's Speilberg's knack of making you emotionally invest in his non-human characters mixed with Kubrick's near-Brechtian desire to alienate the audience. I loved it.

By: alsolikelife

alsolikelife — Sun, 23 Aug 2009 22:55:57 +0000

You're right, we have been round and round this… and I maintain that David's self-awareness is somewhat of a moot issue, since Spielberg is strongly suggesting that his capacity for emotions is what defines him has human. Juxtaposing him at the end with the highly sentient but emotionally depleted advanced mechas pretty much gives that away. You may take issue with that, but at least Spielberg is honest about what he feels – AND willing to complicate the matter of humanity as being a matter of biochemical hard-wiring, as it were, such that the line dividing human and automaton is unsettlingly blurred.

By: Groovymarlin

Groovymarlin — Sun, 23 Aug 2009 22:46:05 +0000

I think you're right about David being “hardwired right to the end,” Christianne. Maybe that's what makes watching the film so disturbing to me – it's like watching a real child put through all that horror, because David is lacking that awareness of what he truly is.

I can't watch this film at all.

By: christianne

christianne — Fri, 21 Aug 2009 18:37:35 +0000

One of the questions I posed to myself when I first saw this film was this:

"It leaves unstated, and never deals with, a central question about artificial intelligence. Are androids sentient? Is David self-aware? Or is he a smart toaster? As depicted through most of the film, he tends toward the latter. If he ISN'T sentient, then his hard-wired love is grotesque. Interestingly, Jude Law's Gigolo Joe articulates this very thought at one point in the movie. David is something of a monster, actually. If David isn't sentient, then what is the point of the story? A. I. fails to deal with this issue, even though it is central to the dramatic integrity of the story."

I watched it recently, and it occurs to me that at least one of the androids IS sentient, and you guys put your fingers on it: Gigolo Joe is absolutely a self-aware intelligence. He adapts beyond his function, and he arrives at his Descartian last line honestly. "I am. I was." Indeed. So it continues to infuriate me that I can't say the same thing about David. I still have no idea if he's a self-aware intelligence. It seems to me that he's hardwired right to the end.

But we've been round and round about this film before, as I recall.

By: alsolikelife

alsolikelife — Fri, 21 Aug 2009 15:21:56 +0000

Thanks for the shout out. Like Rowin, this was only my second viewing – I'd see it pop up on cable once in a while and switch channels almost as a defensive reaction. The movie takes me to such a deep, dark place (a place that a lot of people can only respond to in exasperation or disgust) that I need to be prepared to go there. It's not a film I'd even want to revisit too often for fear of eroding its power through familiarity…

Do you have anything you've written about the film that you can link us to?

By: Michael

Michael — Fri, 21 Aug 2009 14:22:20 +0000

What timing. I watched this again just three days ago. I've seen it about 8 times, but it was my first viewing since 2005, a fact that surprised me once I realized it. It's been in my head every moment since, and now this shows up to send me back into an emotional tailspin.

I won't add anything to the already lucid, gratifying discussion above, except that I remember Michael Rowin telling me that he had finally seen the film after (years of?) hounding. I'm glad you revisited it once again, Michael. It truly gets richer and richer, and there's no doubt in my mind that it contains the most powerful imagery of any movie this decade.